February 17, 2006 | Friday

Academic search

By Jackie Danicki - Blogger in Search Engines |Search Research

John Battelle links to this Syracuse University professor’s analysis of paid and natural search results. From the abstract:

The goal of this research is to get a better idea of how much of the screen real estate displays “real” editorial results as compared to sponsored results. The overall average results are that 40% of all results presented on the first screen are “real” results, and when the entire first Web page is considered, 67% of the results are non-sponsored results. For general search tools like Google, 56% of the first screen and 82% of the first Web page contain non-sponsored results. Other results include that query structure makes a significant difference in the percentage of non-sponsored results returned by a search. Similarly, the topic of the query can also have a significant effect on the percentage of sponsored results displayed by most Web search tools.

If you’re in the mood for something a little more serious this Friday afternoon, this analysis is for you. Enjoy!